Get the Tech Out of Your Cukes

Cucumber is a great tool for writing executable specifications. When written well they provide the basis for a team's understanding of the specification. When they run successfully they provide a confirmation that a feature is done and working properly.

The problem is that most Cucumber features are written poorly. They often include technical terms or a lot of unnecessary details that hide the behavior we are trying to describe. This problem is so profound and pervasive in the industry that some are beginning to believe that is is not possible to describe behavior well with Cucumber.

This talk and hands on demonstration will bring attention to typical smells found in cucumber scenarios. Once we discuss a smell, we'll look at an example that exhibits that problem and then refactor the code and feature to clean it up. Along the way we'll also introduce some common design patterns that can be applied to keep your code nice and d.r.y.